


Sooner or Later (God’ll Cut You Down)

by ambivalentangst



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Alien Invasion of the Week, Attempted Murder, BAMF Peter Parker, Cameo from Pepper, Cameo from Rhodey, Cameo from Steve, Dark Peter Parker, Gen, Heavy Reference to Uncle Ben, Hurt Tony Stark, Identity Reveal, Miscellaneous Alien Invasion, Protective Peter Parker, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Vomit Mention, questionable morals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 09:51:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17506355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambivalentangst/pseuds/ambivalentangst
Summary: There is a plink. Truly, that’s all it is in the midst of battle. The crash is not the loudest of all the crashes happening, the crater it makes not the greatest. Should it not be painted red and gold, it could be just another piece of debris, but alas, the color is there.Itis a man and a very important one at that. Thus, there is a pause. Then, from the depths of a simple mask, a scream that is far too youthful, full of too much fear to possibly be healthy.





	Sooner or Later (God’ll Cut You Down)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!! This has been a WIP of mine for like,, months and inspo hit me over the weekend and I finally got around to finishing it!!! With that though, it is, like, midnight. This has been edited, but changes will probably need to be made here and there come morning. Also, as a warning, this piece doesn’t have quite as hopeful an ending as some of my others, so if that’s not your thing, feel free to click away. 
> 
> The title of this fic comes from the song God’s Gonna Cut You Down by Johnny Cash. It’s an older one I actually don’t listen to that often, but I thought it fit well with this piece.
> 
> If you want to come yell at me about stuff I have a Marvel-only blog that can be found [here!](https://ambivalentmarvel.tumblr.com) I hope you like the fic!

There is a plink. Truly, that’s all it is in the midst of battle. The crash is not the loudest of all the crashes happening, the crater it makes not the greatest. Should it not be painted red and gold, it could be just another piece of debris, but alas, the color is there. _It_ is a man and a very important one at that. Thus, there is a pause. Then, from the depths of a simple mask, a scream that is far too youthful, full of too much fear to possibly be healthy. He screams his name—or rather, his name for him—and one small fist crashes into the side of a building in panic.  
  
Fissures spiderweb across the concrete, first. Cracks and chips and flakes of stone that are all so very disconcerting fall as the building gives a shudder, rattling in its frame and bolts.  
  
The boy, the one who cried and the one who hit, screams again, the same anguished call of a name. However, there is more now. “No!” he roars.  
  
Appearance wise, his mousy looks and slim build do not betray this ability, this talent, one might even say, to roar. One might think him incapable, but with a light made of titanium-gold snuffed out, a great many things become possible. The dark is not to be trifled with, after all.  
  
The boy roars, the building crumbles, and the invaders still.  
  
The boy is shaking, shoulders quavering as his palms crunch stone and glass and steel like it is nothing. His face is flushed under the mask of fabric. Tears are building, and he runs to his fallen mentor. He pulls him from the rubble, the pounds and pounds of it that he has to move, and dusts off the reactor feared across the universe. He cradles him, the man’s eyes closed and the boy’s very much open.  
  
“Mr. Stark,” he whispers, shaking him. “Mr. Stark! Wake up!”  
  
And there is silence, eyelids glued shut with blood and battle. The boy—Peter—presses his ear to a sleek chest, and only with his kind of hearing is he able to make out the faltering _thump thump thump_ of his heart.  
  
Peter’s head drops, sagging with relief. “It’s gonna’ be okay,” he whispers. “We’re gonna make you better, don’t worry. Just hold on, Mr. Stark.” He listens for a few more long seconds, reassures himself that his mentor is still alive before setting hundreds of pounds of metal and man down like it weighs less than a feather, like it is the most delicate thing in the world.  
  
Peter draws himself back up, standing over the crumpled form beneath him, red smeared all over its face. The soldiers shift, and one poor, stupid thing makes the mistake of brandishing its weapon, rushing forward to take out the boy while his back is turned.  
  
Peter’s face does not change, eyes still locked on his mentor as he grabs the spear and breaks it in two, hitting his assailant with the blunt end and sending him down the street and into a building.  
  
The creature does not get up, not while Peter’s there. Then again, neither has Peter’s Mr. Stark. This gives him a considerable amount of motivation. He turns, the limbs of his latest suit impaling the ground in four spindly, suddenly very _lethal_ looking points.  
  
“Where’s the fighter?” he growls, voice low, almost indecipherable to his fellow humans. Aside from their little area, the fight rages on, the still unnoticed. The pause that follows the question is kinetic, full of nervous shifting and sideways, fearful glances.  
  
“Where is it?” he demands to know, harsher this time. He saw the army’s airships—fumbling, more a nuisance than anything up until Mr. Stark’s back was turned for a second too long and—  
  
Peter’s out for blood.  
  
He storms over to the nearest alien, grabbing it by its armor. Its stumpy, ugly legs kick uselessly in the air as Peter lifts it close to his face in one hand, the other turning its blaster into scrap metal with nothing more than his hand balling into a fist. Where the things had come from, Peter isn’t sure. They’re not hard to fight, and it would be an easy battle had there not been one glaring, potentially fatal, lapse in attention. Peter can’t leave the battlefield to get Mr. Stark to safety, not when the others are struggling to hold the invaders back due to their sheer numbers, but he can sure as hell make them regret creating one.  
  
“I’m not asking again. Where did it go?”  
  
Its beady eyes shine, making a pig-like squeal that slowly turns into words. “I don’t know, I swear! I’m not the commander! We have cloaking—” Peter tightens his grip a little, and the thing gasps for breath “—cloaking technology. Please, put me down,” it whimpers. In the back of Peter’s mind, there’s a voice screaming that he’s being cruel, that there’s no need to scare the creature like this. He doesn’t listen.  
  
He releases him with little ceremony. The alien’s round shape collapses on the ground with a wheeze, the air knocked out of its lungs as it scrambles to put some distance between himself and Peter. The army, for all the countless bodies comprising it, is no smarter than an individual. Their fighting is scattered, generally ineffective, and causing more chaos than damage. Their attention is so lacking, as a matter of fact, there are only maybe a dozen desk-sized creatures surrounding Peter and his Mr. Stark, only a handful who have grasped the situation and seen it first hand. They look afraid of what they’ve had the misfortune to witness.  
  
Peter’s still trembling with the fact that Mr. Stark still isn’t moving, and there’s no telling if he will any time soon. He doesn’t care about their fear. Actually, knowing that they’re a part of why he has to lift Mr. Stark in his arms, get ready to carry him to safety, Peter relishes it.

His mentor, even in his suit, is no harder to lift for Peter than a shoebox might be for a normal person. They make it to the top of a building, where Peter sets him back down as soon as he’s able. He knows that he’s probably not supposed to move someone who is as pale and covered in blood as Mr. Stark, but he couldn’t just _leave him_ with all of the—

Peter doesn’t have a word for the aliens. All he can think of is the disgust rising from within him at the thought of their pinschers and almost rat-like, scaly tails.

Above them, he sees nothing but sky and the occasional door opening in the middle of it, raining down more of the creatures that can’t seem to stop coming. The next time one of those doors opens, Peter’s ready.

He flexes his fingers and a web shoots out. The points of the suit dig into the concrete to keep him in place, and Peter _pulls_.

Peter’s had little experience with flying, only a small portion of which hasn’t ended in flames. He has no love for it, certainly. That doesn’t change as the ship—smaller than the one that took his parents, smaller than the one that landed him on a beach—is dragged from the sky, flickering into view as it strains against Peter’s strength.

Peter realizes that to crash it at present would be too risky, so that’s not his plan. No, he brings the ship close, and he leaps.

It’s not hard to stick to the side of the fighter, punch a hole through the window of the cockpit and hiss his question to the pilot under threat of just what the child behind the mask might do if he doesn’t get an answer.

Peter is grateful that tear stains don’t show through metal as they do with fabric because the only thing going through his mind is the color of his uncle’s blood and the flashing of sirens, the expression on his face when his body went slack.

It’s a little more difficult to fight past Sam Wilson when he flies up to greet him and finds Peter with one of the aliens, squealing in terror as it’s held out the window by three of Peter’s fingers loosely gripping its armor.

“Kid,” Sam starts, walking forward slowly. He didn’t know what he expected when Natasha pointed out a form scuttling across one of the hovercrafts, but this wasn’t it. “What are you doing?”

He can’t make it line up, witty quips and hand-written notes with the careless way Spider-Man shifts, _teasing_ the creature with its own demise. It’s crying, Sam thinks, reaching up to try and cling to Peter’s hand that keeps moving, not allowing it to get a grip. The ship floats in the air, a sitting duck without someone to keep it on the offensive.

“Funny thing about this one,” the kid begins lowly. Sam’s never gotten a name to match with the suit he wears, but he knows the person inside isn’t nearly as old as he’d like the rest of them to believe. “It’s a sniper. Pretty good, I guess. Good enough to hit Mr. Stark.”

Things kind of click with that. Sam’s aware that the kid’s close with Stark. He just didn’t know how far that went.

“Kid, put it down. You don’t want to do this.”

In the comms, the rest of the team is confused, demanding clarification.

Spider-Man keeps on going. Sam takes consolation in the fact that he isn’t playing with the creature anymore, at least. The gaping, white eyes of his mask are incredibly uncomfortable to have trained on you, Sam finds. “He shot him down, Mr. Wilson. I have him on a roof, but he’s not moving.” The cold undercurrent from before is giving way to panic, tears not seen coming through in the way he chokes on his own words. “He’s not _moving_ , Mr. Wilson, and there’s a lot of blood.”

The others continue to yell, and Sam mutters under his breath even though he knows the kid can hear. “Spider-Man is compromised, and Stark is down. Requesting backup immediately.”

He tunes out the sounds of the battle around them.

All Peter has been ever to hear ever since Mr. Stark fell is the sound of the blast that hit him, ringing in his ears.

“My uncle didn’t move, and Mr. Stark isn’t going to, either. There’s always so much blood, Mr. Wilson.” The kid’s voice is cracking, Sam notes, despite growing louder, more incensed.

“Tony’s gonna’ be okay, kid, but I need you to put that dude you got there down. I know there’s a lot going on right now, but don’t do this. You’re going to regret it. You’re too young to have this on your conscience.” Sam isn’t confident, truth be told, about the first part of what he says, but the other half—the idea of the kid letting go—sends chills up his spine. He was supposed to be evacuating, anyway, never part of the actual fight.

Some part of Peter’s registers Sam’s logic, that a sixteen-year-old shouldn’t be responsible for someone’s death. He knows it’s too late for that, though. Shock’s blurred the features of the mugger from his memory, but Peter will never forget the sound May made when the police brought him and the news of her husband’s death to her door.

“He hurt Mr. Stark,” he whispers. The creature is whimpering, movements slowing as he runs out of the energy to fight. On the horizon, Sam sees a figure arcing across the sky and coming their way, silver and black and deadly. The man inside raining down destruction unsettles him far less than the single boy and his victim. Peter’s still talking, but he can’t feel a thing, pulse thumping in his veins until it’s the only thing he can feel. “He hurt Mr. Stark,” he repeats. Sam can sense the climax the kid’s careening towards, but he still can’t move fast enough to stop him. “I’m tired of seeing the people around me get hurt, Mr. Wilson.”

Sam watches shiny, red fingers unfurl, and the creature plummets just in time for Rhodey to land a blow to the back of Spider-Man’s head.

* * *

Peter wakes up in the infirmary with a headache and two gleaming bands, one for each arm, strapping him down to the bed he’s in. He jolts, only to find that they don’t bend. 

“Not gonna’ budge, son. They’re vibranium.”

Peter’s head shoots up, eyes landing on the superhero standing at the foot of his bed. In the back of his head, he realizes that his lack of a mask should worry him. As is, he can only think of Tony, left sprawled on the roof the last time Peter saw him. “Where’s Mr. Stark?” he demands to know. “He got hurt. They shot him down and he was in bad shape—is he okay? Did you guys get him?”

“He’s fine, kid.” 

Peter stares at Steve Rogers and realizes that concern for Tony isn’t the trepidation in his tone. No, he’s looking at Peter like _he’s_ the elephant in the room, his shield leant not-so-casually against a nearby chair. Peter tenses. “What’s wrong?” he demands to know, going to sit before the tug at his limbs forces him to stay down. He only takes a moment to be grateful that his bed is propped up.

Steve shifts, guarded. “How much do you remember?”

Peter frowns, face twisting. In his mind’s eye comes the flash of light that struck Tony, the panic that consumed him, and the fear of the aliens. Things get hazy after he sees himself wrenching a fighter from the sky.  “They got Mr. Stark. I got him somewhere safe, but he was really beat up. Please, can I just see him? I need to know he’s okay.”

“We’re not sure that’s—”

“I’ll handle it from here.” Peter glances over to the door and sees Sam standing there, looking just as wary as Steve.

Steve looks like he wants to protest, but he nods, grabbing his shield and making his way out. 

Sam waits for the door to close to really take Peter in, his pale face that doesn’t match the strength his hospital gown keeps hidden by a long shot. “Jesus, you really are a kid, aren’t you?”

Peter shrugs.

Sam pulls up a chair. “Look, kid, I’ll give it to you straight. I heard most of that, so I know you don’t remember. After Stark went down, you lost it. Knocked a building down, rampaged through a few of their ships.”

Peter’s eyes go wide. He scours his memory, and sure enough it’s faint, but he remembers the stinging of his fist as it sent fissures through concrete. That’s bad—really bad, actually. Peter’s never been one for wreaking any unneeded havoc, so why does it still feel like Sam is holding back? “And?” he ventures tentatively. What could he have done? Why were they staring at him like he’s a bomb lacking its timer?

“You dangled whichever one of those things that shot Stark out of the window of his ship by a few fingers while it screamed for mercy.”

Peter pales. He did that? No, he couldn’t have. He’s not mean, he doesn’t play with lives like that. That’s not who he is, and yet why does it feel like something the Peter from beyond the place where his memories blur would do? “Did I—”

He can’t say it, put a label on what he did.

“You dropped it, yeah. I caught it before it hit the ground, but you freaked us out, kid.”

Peter’s aware that Sam’s still talking, but he’s just trying to get his head over the side of the bed so that when he retches, it doesn’t go all over the sheets.

His voice cuts off suddenly, looking away from Peter making a mess of the floor. 

When he finishes, when he feels like there’s nothing left in his stomach to be expelled, he looks up, eyes glassy with tears. “Sorry,” he croaks. “God, I’m—oh my god, Mr. Wilson, I’m so sorry. I didn’t—I lost control. I didn’t—don’t—want to hurt anyone, oh my _god_.”

Peter’s trying to process, but all he can think of is the cool, clinical way Sam delivered the information, trying to lessen the blow. It doesn’t work, lets Peter know just how awful a sight he made by the fact that Sam feels like he shouldn’t know the full extent of it.

He’s gasping for breath, keeps whispering apologies like they’re the last things he’ll ever say between his _ohmygod_ s. “I need to see Mr. Stark,” he murmurs when Sam begins to worry alongside him. “I—please—I’m so sorry, I need to see him.”

There’s the feeling of his arms being freed, stumbling down the hallway while Sam grips his wrist gently—too gently for someone who tried to _murder_ someone—and leads him to the room where Tony’s sitting in bed and talking with Pepper.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter all but wheezes, and then there’s a place for him under his hands that wipe his tears and draw him close, keep him until the sobs shaking his shoulders die out.

“You’re okay, Pete. I’m okay. I’m here.”

Peter thinks he should be embarrassed that Sam and Pepper are seeing him come apart, but fear overpowers it, the fear of what he might be capable of if the truth in Tony’s _I’m here_ ever faded away.

Peter thinks of the plink that sounded Tony’s fall and can’t promise, even to himself, that he could be trusted if he lost someone again.


End file.
